Although the present invention is not limited to dolls, but extensible to many other articles such as stuffed animals and other toys, dolls are utilized in practicing the invention in many embodiments, and dolls are used herein as a convenient vehicle for illustrating aspects, features, and characteristics of the invention. A doll is a personal entity with which a child or adult may interact, among a broader class of personal entities. Children, for example, interact with toy cars, tin soldiers, model airplanes, cartoons, stuffed animals and other representative entities, and many if not all of such entities may be invested in some instances, by extension, with a human personality. There is nothing terribly unusual for example, in a child's world, about a talking car. We see such things on television in commercials and cartoons all the time.
The art of fashioning dolls and stuffed animals, such as teddy bears, is very old. Dolls have been found in ancient burial sites and archeological digs, and have served many purposes in the social history of human beings.
Dolls are typically made in an image of a human being, such as a baby, a small child, or a young man or woman, and it is important in many aspects of fashioning dolls to mimic human attributes. It is therefore reasonable that as technology of various sorts has developed in human history, the same technology has been applied in unique and often inventive ways to fashioning dolls. For example, as knowledge of human anatomy has developed, dolls with articulated limbs have been developed. Other technology has been applied to produce dolls that walk, talk, cry, drink, urinate, and so forth.
Interactivity between a human and a doll is known in the art as well, as simply as in a doll that makes a noise when it is squeezed or poked, or in dolls that close their eyes when placed in a reclining position and open their eyes when placed again upright.
In the record of development in fashioning dolls, electronics has played an important part. Dolls have been adapted with recording and playback equipment, for example, and with speakers, so dolls so equipped may speak to a child. Dolls have been fitted out with simple robotics devices, and made to crawl or walk. There are many other examples in the art of dolls comprising electronic gadgets to better simulate human activity and response.
There has been, however, a limitation in the level of sophistication that doll developers have been able to attain, due to a number of factors. Among these factors is the fact that dolls are, in many instances the charge and property of small children, who have no knowledge of electronics and mechanisms, and therefore cannot care for a doll as a machine. Equipment in such a doll needs to be rugged and durable. Cost is also a factor. Electronic equipment can be quite expensive in the relativity of things that are built into dolls, so there is a tendency to avoid very sophisticated equipment in dolls.
Another factor in doll development is the physical space available for electronics. Although some dolls are quite large, most are relatively small, and space for mechanisms and equipment inside a doll is limited.
For these and other reasons, electronic capabilities of dolls has been somewhat limited, so although dolls that speak a number of different phrases or perform a number of different human-like actions may be impressive to many, there is a need for much more capability in dolls. There are no dolls, for example, to the inventor's knowledge, that can carry on a conversation with a child, and certainly not in more than one language. There are no dolls that are capable, with prompting by natural interaction, to recite stories to a child, and to repeat portions of a story on request or just start and stop as the child reacts and responds.
As to a need for sophisticated interaction with a child, an article in Newsweek magazine for Feb. 19, 1996, titled "Your Child's Brain, discusses in some detail processes of learning in children, and indicates that children begin fundamental learning processes very early, perhaps as early as three months of age; and that these processes provide neural connections in a child's brain for distinguishing, for example, between different sounds. For a child to form such associations properly, however, the sounds need to be trueto-life. Unfortunately, animated dolls and animals up to the present time have been limited to few, and low-quality representations.
Extrapolating from the indications in this summary article, If a child is limited in cultural interaction until later in childhood than these critical months and years, that child horizons may be severely limited in later years There is a place for a very electronically sophisticated doll in such a scenario as an interactive companion for a child, wherein the doll may have access to substantial knowledge and skill, and also have ability to help a child learn new skills and develop mentally and emotionally healthy associations.
What is needed is a doll that has real-time access to a potentially unlimited data supply and variable abilities to interact with a child as a knowledgeable and articulate companion. A sophisticated computer, such as a high-end personal computer (PC), has such sophistication and capability, and access to mass storage devices and remote databanks through digital and analog communication links, and also interactive ability through I/O ports and communications, but one cannot expect a young child to sit for long in front of a computer or to interact with the computer. A young child will, however, interact with a doll, and may be expected to interact very strongly and closely with a very sophisticated doll.